Spring 2019

Head on over to Veg Plotting for her report of her Return to Malvern and 2019's Spring Festival...

A return to the autumn show

It's a while since I attended the Autumn show and it was well worth the wait until last Saturday as I thoroughly enjoyed my day there. A gin-clear sky and warm sunshine meant the hills made a glorious backdrop to the day's events.

The horticultural content may be lower than the spring show, but there was still more than enough to see. Floral excellence was to the fore in its new dedicated marquee and there were plenty of informative talks in the adjacent tent. I particularly enjoyed the garden version of 'Just a Minute' with subjects supplied by the audience. Much laughter flowed from the ensuing discussion and banter by James Alexander Sinclair, Alys Fowler, Joe Swift and Gyles Brandreth.

Malvern celebrates the harvest, with its own dedicated tent and the world of giant vegetables in particular. Half a dozen world records were broken this year, one twice in the space of 5 minutes. Another was broken by one grower who used the seed given to him by the previous record holder. He looked a little bemused on Sunday's Breakfast News, but that may have been due to the vagaries of live outside broadcasting.

There aren't any show gardens in autumn, though there are permanent gardens at the showground if you need that particular fix. Instead an opportunity is taken to display the fruits of the season, especially as Malvern is at the heart of England's top fruit activities. This was of particular interest as I have a few projects lined up for the coming years and I wanted to talk to the experts about them.

RV Roger deservedly won Best in Show with their exhibit of top fruit. They were also extremely helpful with all my questions about how to grow stepover apples. They highly recommend Lord Lambourne for this technique and so I duly added it to my list of potential varieties to grow.

I also took the opportunity to learn more about perry pears by going on a walk around the wider Three Counties showground. The national collection used to be held there, but has since moved to the aptly named Hartpury (reportedly meaning hard pear). Jim Chapman displayed 90 varieties from the new national collection and I giggled when I saw one is called 'Gin'.

There are still some perry trees to be seen in the grounds and I found I'd actually parked my car under one of them. We also tried one of the pears picked from a tree on our walk... rather hard and bitter tasting at first, with the familiar pear taste to finish. Back in the Orchard tent, the local perries tasted much finer!

I also took the opportunity to conquer a long held fear, but that story deserves a post of its own...

Help create a show garden

Usually the only chance we get to interact with show gardens and their makers is by admiring them at the shows. This year is different as we are all invited to make a knitted contribution to one of the most intriguing and heart warming displays set fair for this year's RHS Malvern Spring Festival.

There's going to be a knitted garden, created to raise awareness of and funds for the Sue Ryder Leckhampton Court Hospice in Gloucestershire. Clare Young - the garden's creator - took up knitting to manage her own grief after losing her husband Ken, who was cared for at the hospice. The items she created raised funds, and then after she and a group of friends yarnbombed a thank you to the hospice, she was invited to create a garden for Malvern.

Clare aims to raise £50,000 from her garden and to help her do so, she is asking for contributions of knitted and crocheted hearts. Take the link to find out more about her Work of Heart Garden, plus further links to the pattern.

I'll be making a heart or two and I look forward to seeing the completed piece at the show!

Wordless Wednesday: Paeonia lactiflora 'Avalanche'

From Primrose Hall Nursery

Spring 2016

I loved the presentation of these contrasting auriculas, courtesy of Drointon Nurseries 

Once again the RHS Malvern Spring Festival has excelled itself this year, topped by the best weather in my 10+ years of visiting the show.

There are plenty of delights - too many for one blog post - so Meet at Malvern presents... a round up of all the ones I've found so far. Let me know if you find any others.

• Grandma's Eco Gardening Notes - To the Hills Again - show preview
• Jack's Blog - Photos from RHS Malvern Spring Festival
• Meet at Malvern - Wordless Wednesday: Paeonia lactiflora 'Avalanche'
• Patient Gardener - RHS Malvern Spring Show 2016
• Sign of the Times - Friday Bench: Graduate Gardeners
• The Chatty Gardener - RHS Malvern Spring Festival - show preview... and Reflections on RHS Malvern Spring Festival and RHS Malvern in Pictures - the aspects which caught Mandy's eye
• The Cynical Gardener - Plant buying and fake fungi
• The English Garden - 5 Things we love from RHS Malvern Spring Festival
• Veg Plotting - In Praise of the Festival Theatre - an aspect of the show which is often overlooked (except when Arabella Sock and Happy Mouffetard are there)
• Veg Plotting - The Lost World of Capability Brown - some research surprises unearthed as part of this year's Capability Brown 300 celebrations
• Vergette Gardens - Malvern Spring 2016 - fantastic pictures of the show gardens, proving it's worth getting up early to take them

See you in the autumn? Show dates are 24th and 25th September.

Spring 2015

Constraining Nature by Kate Durr - Best in Show in the Festival Gardens category

Malvern gets better each year and this weekend's spring show was no exception. There were more gold medals than ever, including this amazing garden by show garden first-timer and trainee garden designer Kate Durr.

The pink tulips are 'Caresse' which has been adopted by the charity Ucare. Kate chose to support this Oxfordshire based cancer charity which raises funds to support urology research and raise awareness of urological cancers.

As usual I'm using this post to gather those blog posts I find about this year's show:

• Blackberry Garden - Preview of RHS Malvern Spring Show, plus news of her visit to the show - Part 1 and Part 2
• Patient Gardener - Show Gardens - Some Highlights
• Sign of the Times - Grow and Friday Bench: The Perfect Commute 
• Stephen Studd Photography - Are You Sitting Comfortably?
• Sue's Bluebell Cottage Gardens and Nursery Blog - Plant List for Malvern Show
• Tales from Awkward Hill - RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2015
• The Enduring Gardener - The Marvels of Malvern
• The Room Outside - Malvern Spring Festival 2015 and The Main Show Gardens
• Veg Plotting - Mediterranean Malvern
• Vergette Gardens - Looking at Malvern 2015

The Autumn show is on September 26 and 27th - see you there?

Wordless Wednesday: I See You Baby

THE Plant of This Year's Show?

At every garden show there's always one plant which flies off the stands to feature prominently in lots of bags and trolleys. Yesterday at Malvern was no exception.

This is Fatsia japonica 'Spider's Web', which displayed itself to perfection in the Floral Marquee on a dull and rainy day. Even I succumbed as I have just the spot in the garden which needs a lift via some lighter foliage. The person in the queue behind me was also buying this plant and the person behind her said:
'Gosh it's real, I thought it was plastic!'

It wasn't to everyone's taste* - I could tell by the look on Victoria's face she didn't like it. However, I was called over excitedly by the volunteers on the RHS stand who all demanded to know the identity of the plant in my bag. Also Claudia de Yong's designer's eye could see the possibilities for a shady spot.

Variegated plants have a reputation for reverting back to green when placed in the shade. I've been assured that this shouldn't happen - I'll be reporting back to Claudia on how this plant fares in my garden.

* = see this article by Geoff Stebbings - I can see his point re the foliage resembling red spider mite damage. I usually don't go for variegated foliage myself, but I can see how my purchase can work in the spot I have in mind for it.

Other blog posts:

• Veg Plotting has a show overview
• Helen has a thorough look at the nurseries, plus her personal experiences of AGS showing and helping on the Avon Bulbs stand
• Ann has put together a two page journal with plenty of snippets about the show
• Sign of the Times has a poignant message from one of the schools gardens
• The Cynical Gardener shows off her haul from the Floral Marquee
• Naturally, the other blog dedicated to Malvern has a few things to say on the subject (work back from this link to find plenty of other posts about this year's show)
• I'll add further links from other attendees as and when I find them. Let me know about yours in the comments below

Yesterday at Malvern...

Other posts:

Lack-A-Daisy - We Avoided the Nut That Crashed to the Ground but was it a Golden Day?
Patient Gardener - My First Show Entry and Malvern Show Gardens
Sign of the Times - Friday Bench: Heucheraholics and Reposer Vos Roues
Veg Plotting - Waving Goodbye to the Pleiones

And last but not least, Ann has continued with her Malvern Jotter throughout the show's duration.

See you there?

This year the Malvern Spring Show is from the 9th to 12th of May.

I'm currently planning on being there on Thursday if you fancy joining me. Nothing fancy like 2010 this time mind, I'm just planning on having a jolly time and the chance for a chat ;)

Ann Somerset Miles is doing a sterling job blogging in the run up to the show, so that's a must-see destination for planning your visit this year :)

See you there?

News of This Year's Spring Show

The Malvern Spring Show is set for a bumper edition this year, with Carol Klein set to join James in the Plants and People Arena on Friday and Saturday. Joe Swift will be also there on Saturday as usual, despite the show garden build at Chelsea kicking off a few days before Malvern commences.

Allotments get a feature to themselves - hosted by Terry Walton and Reg Moules and there's over 100 exhibitors in the Floral Marquee with many more set to join them in the outdoor sales area.

On the show gardens side of things Chris Beardshaw has designed a feature to celebrate 30 years of Groundwork and is supporting the new Painting with Plants initiative. Another Chelsea show garden designer taking some time out for Malvern!

I'm hoping to be there on Thursday and possibly Friday or Saturday. It all depends on how family matters pan out over the next few weeks...

Merry Christmas!

Sadly I don't have a picture of the Malvern Hills in the snow, so here's a view of just around the corner from this time last year instead. Happy Christmas everyone :)

Painting With Plants

Bryan's Ground - during 2011's Malvern Spring Show

This year saw the end of the Chris Beardshaw Mentorship. However, that doesn't mean his involvement with the Malvern Spring Show will be ending. Yesterday a new show feature Painting With Plants was announced with Chris very much to the fore. As he's also returning to Chelsea with a show garden next year, for him May will certainly be busy!

10 borders will be displayed, each inspired by a painting, photograph or a landscape. I was certainly inspired by Bryan's Ground earlier this year, which very much has an artistic feel to it, so who knows perhaps it might also feature at the show next year? The border will be purely plants - no hardscaping -so it'll be interesting to see what each entrant comes up with.

This new initiative is designed to put the focus on community groups, schools and charities and the top three designs will each receive a prize of £1,000 for their nominated good cause. Have a look at the explanatory letter and entry form if you think this is for you.

Anyone for Asheville in 2012?

The next USA Garden Bloggers Fling is all set for 18-20th May in Asheville, North Carolina. Preparations are already well underway and details can be found on the dedicated Fling Blog.

Harvest Time at Malvern

The Malvern Autumn Show is always a celebration of harvest time, particularly the local cider apples and perry pears like those in the picture. Did you know the Three Counties Showground has the national collection of perry pears? I must try to find them. If you're staying in the area, you might like to follow this cider and perry trail :)

The show starts next Saturday and already Deb Bird is hard at work putting together her next show garden which like the others will have an edible theme. Thank goodness all of them will be in a tent, seeing some more miserable weather is forecast for the next couple of days!

Currently I'm not sure if I'll be at the show owing to family commitments. However, Ann Somerset Miles will be blogging live from the event (probably in her many blogging guises!) and Mark Diacono is firmly part of the weekend's programme. With Deb in attendance too (do go and say hello!), it looks like there's plenty of opportunity for an informal get together over the weekend. I'll round up any posts I find afterwards, and fingers crossed I get to see you there.

Do let me know if you're going (and the day) and I'll put up a list below, so you can keep an eye out for each other...

Update - here's the posts I've found so far:
Ann Somerset Miles with her Dobies hat on ;)
Patient Gardener
The Inelegant Gardener

PlantPassion was also there (no blog post as yet) and several from UK Veg Gardeners.

Free Accommodation Available

Way back in June I received the following email from Julia Goodfellow-Smith:

I’ve just stumbled across your blog about meeting at the garden shows held in Malvern.

My husband and I are keen gardeners and have recently moved to Malvern – just a mile or so, I’d guess, from the showground and ½ mile from Great Malvern train station. We’re also couchsurfers – see www.couchsurfing.com – so that means that we’re happy to put up gardeners visiting the show, free of charge.

I can’t see how to add a comment to your blog, so thought I’d let you know so that you can add us to your accommodation section, if you like.

I promised Julia I'd not only add her kind offer to the Accommodation page, I'd also let you know about it closer to the show. For those of you not familiar with the couch surfing concept, there's loads of generous folk around the world who offer complete strangers a bed for the night, or to show them around their town or city. You can find what's available via the above link to the website.

If that sounds a bit scary, couch surfers are encouraged to write about their experiences with their hosts, so any potentially dodgy ones get weeded out very quickly. My friend C talks very warmly about the people she's put up for the night at her home in Bath via this scheme.

Since I last looked at the website in June, it seems you have to join up in order to find out what accommodation is on offer and where. I did notice there were a couple of others available in and around Malvern, so this could be just the thing for you if you fancy a more personal and budget stay with people who like to welcome visitors and know the area well. Be sure to let Julia know how you found out about the scheme ;)

My thanks goes to Julia for getting in touch and reminding me this option is available :)

Fixing the Popular Posts Widget

For a while the Popular Posts widget (i.e. the one Blogger developed and available via the Add a Gadget menu) in the right hand sidebar has been displaying incorrectly and today it's irritated me enough to do something about it!

The picture was truncated and the left hand side of the accompanying post title merged into the picture OR for posts that were text only, the first 2-3 letters of the post title were missing. I tried altering the settings in the Popular Posts widget itself, but there's very little there to play with. Removing the thumbnail option only made things worse: all post titles were displayed with the first 2-3 characters missing. Having upgraded to IE9 recently and its attendant problems, I also had a look at the blog via a a couple of different browsers, only to find the problem hadn't gone away. Grrrr!

For once searching Blogger Help for the answer was successful - see reply #3 (NB my search was for Popular Posts widget truncated). Removal of the following line from the blog template's HTML is needed:

text-indent:-15px;

If you have the same problem with this widget and don't mind fiddling around with HTML, then this will probably work for you too. Save a copy of your current template first (just to be on the safe side), then look for the part of the template which starts:

.sidebar li {

The offending line should be a couple or so lines further down - I can't say exactly where as my template looked slightly different to that shown in the Blogger Help reply. Anyway, locate and remove the offending line then save your revised template. Refresh your blog and have a look - a nice square picture icon (if you ticked the show thumbnail option when setting up the widget) and clear text should now be looking back at you :)

If that pesky line isn't there (and if I was a betting girl, I'd lay a shilling that it is), then restore your saved template copy and seek help via Blogger - I don't have the answer I'm afraid :(

Good luck!

Flowers From My Local Nursery

Malvern Show has lots of nurseries within its three counties catchment which prove they're up with the best who exhibit at Chelsea and suchlike. However, I'm always pleased to see my local specialist nursery when it's time to display his foxgloves based on the national collection he holds here in Wiltshire.

Wordless Wednesday: Saturday's Alarm Clock

Try here if the embedded video doesn't work

Postcard From Malvern

Atomic physics meets the Wicker Man: just one of the many contrasts to be seen at this year's Malvern Spring Gardening Show.

It's a fantastic show this year and I've had excellent company over the past few days to take it all in. I have a more extensive post over at Friday's The Guardian Gardening Blog which was sent in direct from the showground :)

I'm collecting together everyone else's posts [there's some absolute corkers - Ed] and will update this post with a round up for you via Mr Linky very soon. Update 17/5: Mr Linky is here! Do add your post about Malvern if I haven't already :)

Update 26/8: The picture heading this post is now playing on the Wicker Man website as part of their 2011 Sculpture slideshow :)

Note: Ann Somerset Miles deserves a gold medal for not only blogging on 4 different blogs, but also blogging on each one for 4 days from the show!